In the past, Chinese characters (Hanzi) were written by hand, wherein metal plates were formed and documents were printed using a mimeographing process. Thereafter, Chinese typewriters were developed, including many, many Chinese radicals. However, the arrangement of these radicals was not organized and, importantly, radicals were very difficult to locate among the many, many radicals included.
In addition, even if a radical were located, multiple radicals still had to be located to form a single character or Hanzi. Thus, typing using such a typewriter was very difficult, time consuming and cumbersome. There are 214 Chinese radicals, but fewer than 100 of them are common. Thus, a keyboard including Chinese radicals can be quite complex and the radicals can be quite difficult to locate. These radicals are used for assembling Chinese characters and arranging them in dictionaries, similar to arrange words alphabetically.
A Chinese (Mandarin Chinese (MC)) dictionary is typically organized around the aforementioned Chinese radicals. Every Hanzi includes at least one radical. Most Hanzi are a combination of two elements—a radical and a secondary component. The secondary component usually represents a phonetic element—a kind of “sounds like.” First you look up the radical, then count the number of strokes used in the radical for the secondary component of the Hanzi. For example, if the radical includes seven strokes—the word will be in the dictionary among the seven stroke Hanzi with that radical. This is how the system actually works. Thus, typing in Chinese characters is through the use of Chinese radicals can be very tedious and cumbersome.
In China today, some people type messages/words/etc. using Roman letters instead of Chinese radicals. This system used in China is called Pinyin and features Roman letters for vowels and consonants and further includes the use of numbers for pitch. A typical Pinyin word has both a string of letters and a number. An article, entitled “Pinyin versus Radicals for the Chinese Typewriter” to Rodrick S. Bucknell discusses some advantages of using a Pinyin typewriter over one including radicals.
A word prediction-like process typically occurs in the background on a screen on which the words are typed. The word processor suggests or predicts various candidate Chinese characters called “Hanzi” based upon keys selected and input. A person keeps typing until the correct Hanzi appears via prediction. The screen typically displays a series of Hanzi. Such a system can be slow and requires many key inputs to generate a single Chinese character.